Musk Plans $5M Seaholm Renovation as Terafab Takes Shape

Downtown Austin’s Seaholm Power Plant, which was quietly occupied by several Elon Musk-affiliated companies earlier this year, is getting a $5.2 million facelift.

The planned renovations have been put in place by Wit Tech, a company with links to SpaceX, the firm that is pushing the construction of the Terafab semiconductor manufacturing plant in Grimes County. Musk’s companies occupy 35,000 square feet of space at 800 West Cesar Chavez Street, according to the Austin American Statesman. Musk is typically bombastic about his companies’ pursuits and ambitious, but has not yet publicly commented on the office space. He has given notes about the Terafab project, saying that it will begin with a site in Austin.

Musk acquired more than 6,000 acres in Aggieland to make way for the $55 billion project. Grimes County Commissioners Court voted in favor of giving the company tax breaks and a tax increment reinvestment zone recently. Musk has hinted that the project could swell to 100 million square feet. The project is pushing forward despite local concerns about Musk’s “ask for forgiveness, not permission” attitude about environmental concerns, according to the publication. Residents have also voiced questions about what this means for property values in the mostly-rural county.

Musk’s burgeoning Austin area empire has seen a surge of activity in recent months. Affiliates and companies under the Musk banner have tripled their land holdings in Bastrop east of Austin, next to a facility the richest man in the world claims will have the capability to put data centers in space. Tesla was one of the first in the area with their $10 billion Gigafactory at 1 Tesla Road along Hwy 130, and recently pursued a 700,000-square-foot industrial lease last week.

Terafab is meanwhile crucial to all of Musk’s ventures. It aims to supercharge chips that are crucial to training AI, and the project is billed as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Construction on the factory is currently set to complete in 2027, and when the facility is moving full steam ahead, it could potentially quintuple the amount of semiconductor chips produced globally.

— Hunter Cooke